Intel Pentium Processor 965 Extreme Edition Review

Overclocking

To start things off I left everything alone and overclocking the processor by doing nothing, but increasing the front side bus (FSB) via the 0-30% overclock feature that is found in the Intel D975XBX motherboard BIOS settings. After start at 5% I was able to go all the way to 15% before the system became unstable. Using the stock heat sink, no extra voltage, and changing just one setting in the BIOS I was able to run the Intel 965 processor at 4,368MHz. The FSB easily went from 266MHz all the way up to 312MHz with no extra voltage to the MCH, FSB, or processor. Knowing the processor had more in it we raised the voltages and was able to run the system at:

With an increase in the processor multiplier and some small voltage increases on the processor and MCH we could easily hit a stable 4,800MHz on our processor. For the second time in a row we see a solid 1GHz overclock out on an Intel Extreme Edition processor. These processors really love a little extra voltage and in return they will easily overclock to 4.5GHz+ with no fuss at all. The enthusiast and/or dedicated gamer will find that the Intel 955 and 965 processors are a joy to work with and are some of the most overclocking friendly processors on the market today.